Charity Comms

Yesterday was the last day of Fundraising Convention and before I delve in to what I learned, I just want to say a big ‘thank you’ and ‘well done’ to everyone involved – from IoF staff to the Convention Board, Chairs, Speakers and all the amazing volunteers!

For me, the recurring theme of the day was the need to upskill – whether that’s personal development or building and developing your colleagues’ skills.

Digital leadership

My first session of the day was on digital leadership and it was great to see three female speakers: Clare Moriarty, Permanent Secretary at Defra, Claire Horton, CEO at Battersea and Lara Burns, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Age UK.

Clare talked about how digital is about people and connections and connecting them to services. She talked about all the digital changes happening at Defra because ‘that’s the world we live in now’ where people expect to be able to renew a licence online.

Claire talked us through how important it is that everyone at Battersea understands the role that digital plays and how technology can improve efficiency, help them reach more people and better serve their beneficiaries.

She shared their virtuous circle of insight, innovation, implementation and impact and talked us through each stage.

Insight is about the value of context – both inward and outward. It’s about how you bring people together and how everyone works towards the same goal. Everyone really needs to understand the strategy, challenges and landscape.

To innovate, you need to be an organisational change agent who sees talent in people and pushes them to be brave, agile and adaptive. But innovation mustn’t be for Innovation’s sake. It must have a real purpose.

The implementation stage is about connecting ‘digital natives’ with ‘digital immigrants’ to get buy-in, understanding and trust. And digital must always be linked back to strategy goals.

To create impact, you must be rigorous in what you’re measuring and use that insight to feed that back into your strategy.

Claire then ended with 5 Golden Digital Rules:

Go where your audience is

Invest in digital skills (incl people)

Aim for quality

Plan ahead

Track performance

Last to speak was Lara who talked us through how digital innovation kick-started service delivery and fundraising at Age UK.

At Age UK, digital is not a bolt-on. It’s fundamental to how they are changing service delivery and enabling conversations with older people. Together with CAST, they developed an app called Steps, which helps them create action plans with older people. The success of the app, as a proof of concept, has led to 3 funders now funding digital transformation.

But a step-change in service delivery has not been without its challenges, one of which was the gaps in infrastructure that were exposed.

The Steps story opened up lots of questions, such as how to secure funding for digital innovation at different stages and can we collaborate on funding tech solutions across the sector?

How to develop a personal brand

For my second session of the day, I went along to hear Joe Jenkins, Director of Supporter Impact and Income at The Children’s Society and Liz Tait, Director of Fundraising at Battersea, talk about building a personal brand.

Joe started with saying that your personal brand is what people think about you, not what you think about yourself.

Liz shared some top tips:

Daily interactions – be kind, it’s a small sector!

Spread the kindness

Start close to home – what opportunities are there at your own charity?

Diversity is an opportunity

The plenary was delivered by the amazing June Sarpong who spoke about the importance of diversity and how the charity sector could really lead and set the example of being a diverse and inclusive profession.

My favourite quote from June was, ‘You can’t be campaigning and fighting for equality when your own organisation doesn’t reflect society”.

I have to pay tribute to the IoF who really are working hard to increase diversity in the sector.

The big debate

Are charities where Blockbuster was 15 years ago? Is fundamental change needed in order for them to survive? Mandy Johnson, CEO of Small Charities Coalition and Yasmin Georgiou, Head of Digital Engagement at GOSH argued for the motion whilst Dr Adrian Salmon, Vice President of Grenzbach Glier & Associates and Lesley Pinder Head of Supporter Experience at British Red Cross argued against the motion. They were kept in check by David Hunt, Head of Digital at Breast Cancer Care.

The debate was quite intense so I’m not going to document it all, but read my Twitter thread to see the points raised – there were some really interesting ones.

And who won? Mandy and Yasmin! Although only marginally, it must be said.

Click to read my Twitter thread of the debate:

Woohoo time for the digital debate! Are charities where Blockbuster was 15 years ago? Is fundamental change needed in order for them to survive? #IoFFCpic.twitter.com/eK4uC5zkzC

Digital Transformation in practice

The last session of the day (and of Convention) was all about digital transformation in practice. I was really keen to attend this as digital transformation is often spoken about in ‘big picture’ terms so I was interested to hear how charities are actually doing it.

It was a joint session of two charities: Tom Barker, Head of Digital at National Trust and Simon Honnor, Digital Marketing Manager and Katy Rouse, Digital Content Manager at NSPCC.

Tom spoke first about how National Trust is putting digital transformation into practice and offered 7 tips:

It will only happen if you really want it to. He used a ‘quit smoking’ analogy – for anyone wanting to quit smoking there are apps, patches, services etc to help you yet it will not happen if you don’t really want to quit. You can have all the tools at your disposal but you have to really want to make the change.

Have a single, clear objective – if you can’t explain it quickly to a senior manager or trustee, you’ll lose their attention and it won’t move forward.

Chunk it up – it can be a big, scary, daunting task but it you break it up into smaller chunks, it’s more achievable.

It’s a long haul, not a short fix – be honest with how long it will take so there are no unrealistic expectations.

Invest in IT – and this means invest in relationships. Be friends with IT. Believe me, you’ll need them.

Plan beyond delivery – need a new website? Build in a budget for beyond when the website is live. And not just to fix bugs but to test and iterate functionality.

Next up, Simon and Katy talked us through NSPPC’s email empowerment programme. They took three steps to upskill staff to allow them to create their own emails, thus freeing up time in the digital team to do more testing and optimizing.

Engage – get buy-in (from Senior managers and all staff who need to be involved) and co-create or it won’t work.

Educate – (or upskilling) they delivered face-to-face training as well as creating guides and putting together a quiz on the intranet. They also blog on the intranet and send out a monthly newsletter

Enhance – this is all about freeing up time to measure and test so that there is continual improvement.

So far the results have been promising – they’ve even increased open rates by 3%. But what’s next? They are putting together a web content training programme, they’ve identified digital business partners who will upskill their team members, they’ve got a deal with Econsultancy for fast track online training and the digital team has started a blog, which you can read here.

My brain feels like it’s about to explode from all the learning so this slide for the last #IoFFC session on digital transformation in practice is pretty apt pic.twitter.com/cII5dXeHKc

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Yesterday was day two of the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention – although day one for me as I was on holiday on Monday (why, yes! I do have a bit of a tan, thanks for noticing!). For me, the recurring theme in all the sessions I attended, and one I spoke at, was : to be brave.

Wear It Pink

My first session of the day was by Lottie Barnden, Senior Products Fundraising Manager, and Joe Freeman, Assistant Director of Digital Engagement at Breast Cancer Now who talked about how they achieved mass participation success using relationship fundraising and digital innovation for Wear It Pink 2017.

In the past, Wear It Pink had been treated as a standalone product but there was clearly disconnect with the charity brand so in 2017 they made the (brave) decision to incorporate the Breast Cancer Now brand into it more. They involved more staff in the event, segmented their audiences, used personalised comms, combined digital with post, text and telephone calls to reach people in the way that they wanted to be reached, and aligned the brand – which all resulted in an increase in remittance by 6% and a 7% increase in average gift from the previous year.

How to spot emerging digital tools and trends (no matter your size)

My second session was on spotting emerging digital tools and trends, with David Pearce, Director of Fundraising and Marketing at Dignity in Dying.

This was an interactive session where delegates got to be brave and share their digital challenges. It was no surprise what most were – and David had already captured most in a slide. I always say that, no matter what size your charity is, the three challenges facing all charities is: time, money and resource.

After some soul baring from the audience, the challenges are: ownership, people, resources, content and infrastructure #IoFFC oh and @medavep just happened to have a slide on it like he knew they would come up! pic.twitter.com/Go7EKUceWb

What fundraisers can learn from Tinder

My third session, which was packed both with people and top tips, was with Nikki Bell, Relationship Manager at British Heart Foundation and Victoria Ward, Head of Fundraising at British Youth Council to talk about donors and dating.

There was so much in this session, I recommend you read my Twitter thread below but the highlights for me were:

Stop chasing the people who don’t care about your cause and focus your attention on the ones who do

Use active listening when meeting with donors (don’t take notes!) and always use something personal in a follow-up (such as, I hope you managed to find those shoes you were looking for after our meeting)

When they’ve made a donation, break the dating ‘two day rule’ and say Thank You as soon as possible

Looking for potential new donors? Find them on Twitter using the Advanced Search function

Lastly, ‘self love is the very first romance’. You can’t be a great relationship fundraiser if you don’t look after yourself and love yourself first.

Find the pain and understand the culture

The plenary was by Fatima Bhutto, journalist, author and Young Global Leader for the World Economics Forum. Fatima urged us to ‘find where the pain is because that’s where there is the most need’ but not to just rush in to help but really take the time to ‘understand the culture’. Fatima also said that to make the biggest impact, go to the smallest communities because your work will really make a difference.

Sarah Goddard summed up Fatima’s talk beautifully:

My takeaway from Fatima's amazing talk:

Listen to your communities, engage with them. Work with them to solve problems. Don't go in like a superhero telling them what to do. They know best, but simply need bigger voices and multiple hands to make the solutions a reality #IoFFC

Be brave on social media

After the amazing plenary, it was time to hear from Melissa Thermidor, Social Media Manager at NHS Blood and Transplant and Rebecca Sterry, Senior Communications Manager at Autistica to learn how their organisations are being brave on social media.

Melissa said that the conversation is shifting on social and that Twitter is becoming more of an advocacy platform. My top takeways were:

“There’s no conversion without conversation.”

Create a community by responding to people’s user-generated content and serve it back to them.

Melissa described how they had tweeted a call out for more black blood donors and received lots of racist tweets in return. Instead of just reporting and blocking (and essentially just ignoring it publicly), they fought back. The result, is quite simply, EPIC (click to read the thread):

This was a really brave step on their part, and one that paid off. But there’s still more battles to fight (and win).

Rebecca spoke about how they undertook their own research to really understand their audience so that they could create personas for them. Autism is incredibly emotive so it was essential to understand what matters to different people.

They choose to be quick to respond to news and to be opinionated. They then empowered staff to use Twitter to help build the brand, amplify the charity’s messages and to add a personal touch when they got things wrong:

And in these instances, having a strong staff presence on social really helps. It brings a real human element and opens up conversation, rather than shutting it down #IoFFCpic.twitter.com/8RJZ5WLMSs

What I took away from this session is to stop being so vanilla! Stand up for what’s right and don’t be afraid to admit if you got something wrong.

Last night I spotted this on Twitter and it really nails home to ‘be brave on social media’:

We've had feedback over the last week that some people are unhappy with our plan to offer up to 14 scholarships to refugees living in the local area. To these people, we would like to say: Tough. Jog on. https://t.co/ioDLPp5crw

How to be an excellent young trustee

The last session of the day was one that I was speaking at. Along with Neal Green, Strategy and Insight Manager at the Charity Commission and Leon Ward, Deputy Chair of Brook Young People.

I’ve been a proud trustee of Small Charities Coalition for five years and Leon has been a trustee of (previously) Plan International UK and now Brook Young People for around eight years so we have lots of experience in being a young trustee. Along with Neal, we shared how we found our roles, tips for applying, the interview process, how you need to make sure you do your due diligence and tips for board meetings and more.

It was a really interactive session with loads of great questions and I hope we inspired the young people in the room to be brave, go forth and become trustees. Looks like we definitely inspired at least one!

Didn’t get a picture but I loved @LeonjWard and @LondonKirsty ‘s session on Young Trustees. You’ve really inspired me to continue in my search to find the right trustee opportunity! @IoFtweets#IoFFC

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You’d be forgiven for thinking that Fundraising Convention, the Institute of Fundraising’s annual conference, is just for fundraisers because – well, the clue is in the name… but you’d be wrong.

This year marks my fourth Fundraising Convention and yet, I’m not a fundraiser. So why do I go?

I have four reasons:

To improve my fundraising knowledge

To challenge my own thinking

To network

To leave inspired by passionate speakers and amazing campaigns

Most fundraisers don’t work in silos. They work together with the communications and digital teams to ensure that their fundraising campaigns have inspiring copy, compelling images, reach the right people and are easy for people to donate or get involved. Whilst we all have our own specialisms, it’s important to build knowledge and skills in other disciplines so that we can work together more effectively and efficiently. That’s why I attend Convention – so that I can improve and build on my knowledge and understanding of fundraising.

At last year’s Convention there was a brilliant Women Leaders in Fundraising panel discussion, which gave me lots of food for thought. This year one of the key themes is Diversity (and rightly so) and I’m looking forward to the BAME fundraisers in the UK – what’s race got to do with it? session as well as Pride in fundraising. I want to challenge my own assumptions and my own thinking.

Convention offers so many opportunities to network, which as a trustee of Small Charities Coalition, a Third Sector columnist and a freelancer is fantastic. There’s the delegate drinks on the Tuesday evening, for one, which is always an excellent opportunity to meet your peers. And don’t forget the lunch and coffee breaks! And if you need some tips on how to network, read this fab article on CharityComms.

Last year I spent most of my time in the Digital Stream sessions – another reason why non-fundraisers should attend Convention – and I left feeling inspired by the amazing speakers.

This year, I’ve picked out these sessions that I’m really excited about:

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On Thursday 16 November the Social CEOs Awards took place at JustGiving, who were one of the sponsors alongside TPP Recruitment, Lightful and Grant Thornton. Now in its fifth year, the awards celebrate CEOs and leaders in the charity sector who use social media to champion their cause, raise awareness, break down barriers and have conversations.

The top 30 Social CEOs are not ranked but there is one overall winner. The other categories are:

Best Trustee on Social Media
Best Leader on Social Media
Best Rising Star on Social Media
Best Digital Leader
Best Digital CEO

As a Digital Communications professional, I use social media and digital daily. It’s part of my life and part of who I am so naturally, as a trustee of the Small Charities Coalition, I use these channels and my networks to promote the work of the charity and raise our profile.

I would encourage every trustee to get on social media and talk about their charity, their impact and just have conversations. It can make a huge difference. Many of my fellow trustees at Small Charities Coalition and our Chair, Julia Kaufmann, are active on social media and all our staff are too. In fact, our CEO Mandy Johnson – who has only been in her role for four months, made the top 30 Social CEOs Awards list! I’d like to think that, although we may be small, Small Charities Coalition is a shining example of how everyone in the organisation is responsible for raising our profile and using our networks and influence to best serve our members.

Social media is a great leveller. It puts us all on an even playing field, whether you’re at a large charity or a small one. Many of the winners in the Social CEOs Awards this year are from small charities!

After my award win I was whisked away to give a few words on why more trustees should embrace social media.

A big thank you to the co-founders of the Social CEOs Awards, Matt Collins of Platypus Digital and Zoe Amar of Zoe Amar Communications for recognising the need for these awards – to celebrate those doing social media well and to encourage other leaders to see the benefit and to get on board.

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It’s Trustees’ Week and, therefore, the perfect time to promote being a trustee. I’ve been a trustee of the Small Charities Coalition for three years and I have two more years left of my term. In that time, I have learnt so much about governance and the vital role that the Small Charities Coalition plays in our sector. Thanks to our small but amazing team, our volunteers and my fellow trustees – past and present, we have provided advice, support and help to thousands of small charities and given them a voice through our policy work.

As we all know from the closure of Kids Company, being a Trustee is a huge responsibility. Essentially you are legally responsible (along with your fellow trustees) for your charity so always make sure to do your due diligence before applying for a trustee role – it’s vital that you know what you’re getting yourself in to. But with this responsibility comes a heap of benefits too.

Here are three reasons to become a trustee:

Gain experience in different areas

Prior to becoming a trustee, I had never held a management position. By becoming a trustee, you quickly learn about management, governance and strategy. It’s a great way to gain skills in areas where you are lacking. It’s a position of great responsibility so can help boost your CV. How? Well, the CEO of the charity reports to the trustees and the trustees also help manage finances and issues of governance.

Feel good by giving something back

Being a trustee of a charity where you really care about the cause is very rewarding. There are no financial rewards as being a trustee is a voluntary role and it can sometimes be quite full on. However, knowing that your skills and experience are helping a charity reach its strategic objectives is a wonderful feeling. Even better is when you know how much your time, skills and experience is appreciated and valued.

A charity should always have a Board who all bring different skills to the table with them – although of course some will overlap – so that they can best serve their charity in all areas. As a digital marketing trainer, I offer my services to our members by delivering training or webinars on behalf of the charity. I also have a monthly column in Third Sector where my by-line says that I am a trustee of SCC, which helps get our name out there. And whenever I am delivering external training or presenting, I always introduce myself as a Trustee of SCC so look beyond just what you can offer in the boardroom.

Extend your networks

SCC has 10 trustees from different areas, sectors and stages of their careers. By joining a Board, you are extending your network of peers and engaging with a diverse range of people. As a trustee of SCC, I’ve been invited to events which of course allows me to meet people and expand my network. I’m also a huge advocate of social media and always promote the work of SCC to my networks whenever I can, and I know that some people have followed me on Twitter or connected with me on LinkedIn because of my trustee role. Our CEO, Mandy Johnson, wrote this excellent post about the role of social media for a charity CEO and how it can be used to connect with our members across the UK as well as allowing ourselves to be transparent.

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The last day of Fundraising Convention is always tinged with a bit of sadness because, who wants it to end? However, it’s also exciting because the next day you get to go back in to the office and put in to practice what you’ve learnt! So what where the highlights of day three?

I was back in the digital stream for the first sessions of the day (actually…. every session apart from the plenary. Sorry, not sorry) for the Big debate: This house believes that our donor base is too old for digital.

For the motion was Simon Scriver, professional fundraising consultant and Jen Love, Partner at Agents of Good. Against the motion were the two Jo(e)s, both from breast cancer charities – believe me, that got confusing! Jo Wolfe, Assistant Director of Digital at Breast Cancer Care and Joe Freeman, Assistant Director of Digital Engagement at Breast Cancer Now.

Simon took to the lectern first to deliver the fact that 7% of charities’ income comes from online. Meaning, 93% is offline and often that 7% that gives online have been driven by something offline, such as a chat with a friend who is running a marathon and fundraising for a charity.

So, do you spend most of your time on the 93% or waste your time on the 7% in the digital fantasy world?

With that bombshell, Jo Wolfe delivered her argument and that was that it’s charities that are old in their ways, not donors. In fact, 78% of over 65s are on digital and yes, we are not our users but let’s not make assumptions about them. Let’s talk to them instead and find out just how digitally savvy they are.

Jo argues that it’s not until charities invest more in digital that we will see a shift in how people donate. Although not fundraising related, Breast Cancer Care’s online forum has 1.2 million women around the world who connect with other women in meaningful ways. They can go on the forum anytime – not on a set day, at a set time like in a face-to-face group. Isn’t that pretty powerful?

Jen then explained how her mom is 70 and spends 99% of her time online. liking her Facebook posts and playing Candy Crush but this has nothing to do with online fundraising. Why? Because it’s not her story.

93% of donors are experiencing your charity on the street, in their mail box and on Facebook but they are not part of your conversation.

With that, Joe Freeman argued that the world is changing – we have computers in our pocket. We were always told, ‘don’t talk to strangers and don’t get in a stranger’s car’ but now we talk to strangers online and get into ubers. Rather bluntly (although it’s true) Dorothy Donor is going to die. Who is going to replace her? With FPS and GDPR fast approaching, it is going to be even harder to communicate with supporters so social channels are going to be even more important.

There were of course, lots of other very interesting and valid points but I especially liked this from Joe:

'If we're not prepared for disruption & prepare to change & evolve with the world, charities are not going to exist' @JosephFreeman#IoFFC

Jo and Joe! Not sure if the fact that this was run in the digital stream had anything to do with it….

The next session I went to was #AutismTMI – how to get 56 million views without traditional advertising.

Chrystyna Chymera-Holloway, Head of Insight and Strategic Marketing and Tom Purser, Head of Campaigns and Community Engagement at the National Autistic Society presented on their #AutisimTMI campaign, which has been running for around two years. TMI stands for ‘too much information’.

99.5% of people in the UK have heard of autism, however only 16% of autistic people and their families said the public understands how autism affects behaviour. When asked, parents said their child’s autism was misinterpreted as ‘naughty’, ‘strange’ or ‘funny’. The aim of the campaign was to improve the lives of people with autism, and their families, by increasing the public’s understanding of autism and their perceptions, attitude and behaviour toward them. Their target was:

To increase a real understanding of autism by 5%

Behavioural change (5%)

5% may seem small, but it is in fact millions when referring to the UK population. So, how did they do it?

The campaign

The campaign centred around authentic content as it had to resonate with supporters and be true to autism. They used a survey, which gave stats on things like which areas were the worst, e.g. shopping centres, buses and also what autistic people and their families wanted the public to know to create their content. All they really wanted was a little bit of kindness – to associate certain behaviours with autism and to not stare but, rather be kind and show empathy. Every piece of content was 100% genuine and stemmed from actual experiences.

Heartbeat and hero content

Hero content were the pieces of content they really invested in, such as their launch film, and were shown throughout the campaign. They also created two other films. The heartbeat content was done in-house and was about more about resonating with their own audience, rather than the public.

The launch film – Can you make it to the end?

The film took lots of real life experiences and the star, Alex, has autism himself. It aims to show what goes in inside the mind of a person with autism and how there is sometimes ‘too much information’, which then makes them act out.

They also launched a virtual reality experience of the film which took place in the shopping centre the film was shot in, which put people in Alex’s shoes.

Media Partnership

The Guardian partnership fitted their target audience, but more importantly it gave them the opportunity to tell lots of different stories and have different types of content, like video and quizzes as well as editorial over a sustained period of time.

What were the results?The launch film was seen 56 millions times! And the second film achieved over 1 million views with the third film achieving almost 10 million views. Their social channels grew by almost 25k on Twitter and 110k on Facebook in the first four months of the campaign.

The biggest result of all? That 5% increase in real understanding of autism actually achieved 17%. Wow.

In terms of media results, almost 65k campaign sign-ups and 2 new corporate partners were secured.

Top tips

Top tip from Tom, was:

Start with a strategy and don’t be afraid to change it. The campaign is almost 2 years old so you need to adapt to keep people engaged.

Other tips or learnings are to invest in great content but great content is nothing if no one sees it so spend time in seeding that content and looking for appropriate media. For an awareness target, data capture isn’t crucial, internal buy-in and comms in essential.

Use your existing audiences for case studies and stories but also to help you spread and amplify your message.

My last session of the day (and of Fundraising Convention) was 100 nights at the Royal Albert Hall – using digital to engage concert goers by Dan Papworth Smyth, Digital Communications Manager at Teenage Cancer Trust.

This year the charity hit their 100th concert and every year the line-up is amazing so it’s easy to sell the tickets but how do you engage the audience as many aren’t even aware that it’s a charity event. They’re just there for Ed Sheeran!

Taking advantage of a captivated audience

After the first interval and just before the main act they always show a 5 minute video. It’s an incredible opportunity to explain a really complicated message in an easily digestible way, to a captivated audience. And of course they have a shorter version for social media too. For the concert they don’t use subtitles but they do for social media as we all know that most people are watching video without sound. Dan says it’s easy to add the subtitles yourself, and he shows you how in this blog post.

This was the video (grab some tissues)

Of course there are lots of clips that don’t make the final video so they looked at ways to still use them across social, during the week of the concerts. Be warned though, if you are using visually similar video (the clips all were shot in the same hospital), Facebook thinks it is the same clip. Dan said that because they were sharing them over that week, their reach dropped dramatically.

Filming behind the scenes

The content that really engages people are the behind the scenes films at the Royal Albert Hall. Most of the videos were filmed by the digital team on their phones, with an external microphone. They work well because they are less intrusive for the person you’re filming.

Dan said, “The Royal Albert Hall only holds 5,000 so is actually a small venue. There are lots of people following it online, as they missed out on tickets, so we have to ensure that we make them jealous and try harder to get tickets next year! Our content is about live tweeting what’s happening at the concerts as well as interspersing it with our key messages. We have an insane content plan!”

As the concerts are so amazing, they thought about how they could use new technology to try and translate the experience to people not at the concert. They tested using 360 degree video – you can read more on Dan’s blog.

Artist engagement

The charity works closely with the incredible artists (who play for free) to help make sure that they talk about the work of the charity and help amplify their messages to their audiences. On YouTube, their top four videos are all concert-related and have combined views of 620, 000. Dan’s top tip is that they piggyback off that by putting those videos in playlists with their own videos about their work.

Capitalise post-show

Post show, they take all the visual content they have and put together a blog post that same night so that the next day, when people are still buzzing and want to tell their friends about how awesome it was, they have a post packed full of photos that can then be shared. This method has helped increase visits to the website by 70% during that week. It also led to increased donations of 200% and the value of the donation by 320%.

Learnings

Start work on film and short clips sooner

A videographer is great but you need to direct them

Team rotation and rest

So what were the results?

Record breaking reach on Facebook

16% of year on year increase in #TeenageCancerGigs

Successful first trial of contactless (there is always a text to give request but they wanted to offer something different)

I thoroughly enjoyed Fundraising Convention this year. The sessions were interesting, packed full of tips and were ones I’d not been to before (they’ve not done the circuit yet!). Best of all is getting to see and chat with peers in the sector. The great thing about our sector is the passionate people.

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As an official blogger for the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention, I was back on day two, excited for the sessions ahead. This time I mixed it up a bit and didn’t spend the entire day in the digital stream sessions. Missed day one? Read my highlights here.

First session of the day, however, and I was back in the digital stream to hear Reuben Turner, Creative Director of GOOD Agency present on Digital: are we doing it all wrong? Now, I’ve known Reuben for years and heard him speak many times. He tells it like it is, pulls no punches but also always has new and interesting things to say and share. And he didn’t disappoint.

Reuben urged us not to think like content marketers (but isn’t content King?), always in pursuit of that next click or like.

Instead, be more human. More of us want to feel connected and part of a tribe and this is the beauty of digital as it can bring people who belong, together.

Take a look at how the Army now recruit. It’s less ‘come and drive a tank!’ and more ‘here is where you belong’.

Although SEO, adwords, test and learn etc are your base, and are of course still important, they will only lead to incremental growth. This is more process than emotion.

Instead, focus on being more human and bringing out these qualities in people:

1. Acknowledge me (I’m here)
2. I care about this too (I belong)
3. I can make a difference ( I matter)

Quite frankly, no one cares about advertising, marketing or even fundraising (apart from those whose job it is) so we need to find that sweet spot and tap into culture. It’s less about what we WANT people to care about and more about tapping in to what they actually care about. That’s how we will win hearts and minds.

For my second session I ventured out of the digital stream (to cries of ‘traitor!’ Only kidding) and joined the panel discussion on the Election 2017: What did it mean for charities and fundraising? The speakers included former BBC Newsnight reporter and NCVO chair Peter Kellner, Lucy Caldicott, CEO of UpRising and Fundraising Regulator board member, Vinay Nair, CEO and co-founder of Lightful and John Tizard, strategic advisor and commentator.

There were some really interesting points, summed up in the following tweets.

What's the government's authentic view of the sector? Great question from @vinaynair No one wanted Minister for Civil Society role #IoFFC

Ultimately, the key lesson was that we are in uncertain times but we must not let that distract us from our mission. We must still lobby for the causes we care about – we owe it to our beneficiaries.

My third session was on How to drive Digital transformation in practice by Yasmin Georgiou, Head of Digital Engagement at Great Ormond Street Hospital. This was such a good session! I loved how Yas made it seem so accessible and achievable. Digital transformation suddenly didn’t sound so scary! That’s not to say it’s easy though…

Yas started with the question ‘Why do we need to change?’ For GOSH, there were 3 reasons:

No one at the charity was crying out for ‘transformation’ but rather for innovation. They wanted shiny things like VR, but without the foundation in place (what their supporters wanted, needed and expected from their digital channels) they couldn’t just step into innovation. It’s really refreshing to hear that Yas said ‘no’, rather than jump on the new, shiny things – tempting as they were.

Being Head of Digital is challenging, if digital has lost all meaning.

So get rid of the jargon, as internal stakeholders don’t understand it and it makes them feel intimidated and devalued. Ditch ‘transformation’ and just replace it with ‘the thing’ such as the website or new database or whatever the project is.

Digital maturity is a gradual progression with realistic goal setting and is not about the digital team – it’s an organisation-wide view. This gradual process works particularly well for risk averse charities. Yas used, amongst other things, Third Sector’s Digital Maturity Matrix, developed by the digital team at Breast Cancer Care, to assess where they are now and where they want to be.

It’s about evolution, not revolution. You might want to wrap up your project in a couple of months but you have to go at the pace of the organisation. Yas said that if she had gone any faster she would have lost people along the way. A top tip is when setting up departmental workshops, don’t forget about the HR team – the conversations with them were the most telling.

Yas says that it’s important to look outwards and admit when you need external support so she got an agency involved, looked to her peers in the sector and went to events and had lots of coffees. She also accessed a CharityComms mentor, which helped immensely.

And this is their Digital Matrix.

The to do list is the maturity index and the roadmap, which is now a living strategy. Conversations now are about meeting an organisational need rather than talking about channels and technology. The result of this new way of working has led to the One day at GOSH campaign, which was filmed over 24 hours at the hospital.

Yas’s four top tips for embarking on digital transformation are:

1. Work at the right pace (go too fast and you’ll alienate people)
2. Collaboration and empathy
3. Be clear on expertise
4. Be prepared to adapt

After lunch I went along to the Women Leaders in Fundraising panel discussion, chaired by Lizzi Hollis. Lizzi set up Charity Women to tackle inequality in the sector. I urge you to join the Facebook group!

The panel consisted of:

Helen McEachern, Director of Fundraising at ActionAid UK

Carol Akiwumi, Fundraising Consultant and Trainer

Amanda Bringans, Interim Director of Fundraising at the British Heart Foundation and Chair of Institute of Fundraising

Meredith Niles, Fundraising Director at Marie Curie

Kerry Blackstock, Director of Public Fundraising at WWF UK

It was a fascinating discussion and an important one too. Inequality and diversity are key issues that the sector needs to address – now.

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Yesterday at the first day of the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention, I found myself attending all the digital sessions, sponsored by JustGiving. As I work in digital – no surprise there, I guess!

For me, there was a recurring theme from all the sessions I attended and that was:

Data is everything

Metrics Mania – the numbers you just have to know with Digital Marketing Consultant Fran Swaine and Celine Boudier, Team Lead and Andreia Silva Cabecinhas, Data Scientist from Ocado drove home the point that we all need to demonstrate impact but many of us are not doing that and how data needs to drive your decision making.

Fran shared a digital fundraising funnel but beware of ‘likes’ at the Attract stage of the funnel – are they just vanity metrics?

Fran suggested using the ‘so what’ test to determine whether something is a vanity metric or not. Here’s a great post from Google Analytics Master Avinash Kaushik to help you put the ‘so what’ test in to practice.

The next session I attended was Failure swap shop – what you don’t hear in the blog posts (and don’t expect to hear it in this one because: Chatham House rules!). The speakers were Paul Weaver, Digital Innovation Manager at Cancer Research UK, Jessica Paz Jones, Senior Digital Manager at NSPCC and Amy Burton, Digital Engagement Manager at the Department of Health.

The key message was that it is OK to fail as long as you learn from it and you use those learnings to make decisions or to make a case. Jessica summed it up beautifully when she said,

Failures and lessons learned are all part of my arsenal.

What she meant by that is when she is asked to do something and she knows it won’t work based on previous testing, she shows the data to prove that it would be an inefficient use of time and money. You can’t argue with the data!

After lunch I was back in Auditorium 1, Level 4 for Sarah Crowhurst’s presentation on how Plan International UK digitised their Sponsor a Child offer – transitioning it from offline to online.

Sarah spoke about how they optimised their website to convert people who had seen their DRTV adverts to then sign up to sponsor a child. She took us through everything they did and offered lots of tips – such as ensuring that your Google Ads and organic keywords match the keywords in your DRTV script and that even if you give people a specific URL, they’ll no doubt still land up on your homepage so make sure you showcase your campaign prominently.

In most cases, give people a choice and they don’t know what to do but in Plan’s case for child sponsorship, this isn’t true. People want to choose which continent, age and gender the child is that they want to sponsor – much fewer people click the default ‘wherever the need is greatest’.

Sarah’s summary points, which also serve as top tips are:

TV drives our online conversion

Supporters want to be in control (they want choice)

Track their behaviour on your website

Ensure paid search is set up (use keywords from the DRTV script)

Track conversions over time and look for trends

Test, test, test

Next up (yes, in the same room) was Fiona Pattison, Account Director and Paul de Gregorio, Director of Digital Engagement at Open. They spoke on ‘Taking UK fundraising approaches overseas and bringing back learnings to deliver even better fundraising at home’, which even they admitted was a snappy title.

The session looked at examples and case studies of campaigns they have worked on from Australia to the US, which was really refreshing to see as I’m so used to only seeing and hearing about UK campaigns.

As Fiona put it, with mobile everything from ideas to reputations can spread – globally and quickly.

Paul shared that messenger apps are taking over social channels are there is more trust and no ads. This is really interesting and something charities need to pay attention to.

What was really exciting about this session was their Stand for Rights campaign for American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Facebook Live campaign. I won’t go in to detail as there is an excellent post on their own blog, which you can read. Basically they worked with a bunch of famous, funny people to deliver a modern ‘telethon’, using Facebook Live and integrating it with Facebook Donate (not available YET in the EU).

Their top takeaways were:

Create your own global network (the ACLU Facebook Page had less than 1,000 Likes prior to the Stand Up to Rights Facebook Live. They grew it to 26,000 in one week)

Steal the best ideas (why reinvent the wheel?)

Make them relevant for the UK

Get your email programme working (US political campaigns are a great example of this)

Focus on things with impact

Focus on payment technology (it’s all about making giving as easy as possible)

The last session of the day was a Social Media masterclass with Jon Ware, Digital Content Lead at Anthony Nolan, Amy Burton, Digital Engagement Manager from Department of Health and Melissa Thermidore, Social Media Manager at NHS Blood and Transplant.

Jon spoke about how they developed a content strategy for Facebook, which you can read in detail on Madeleine Sugden’s blog. But these slides really resonated with me:

We got some rare insight into how social media managers have to sometimes fight fake news from Melissa’s presentation where she shared stats from the Manchester Attack.

Melissa recommended using the linear model in Google Analytics rather than first or last click to get a better idea of how social media has contributed to a conversion.

Melissa left us with this great quote,

Make moments from metrics.

I learnt so much from the first day of the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention – roll on the second! Not there? Follow all the tweets with #IoFCC.

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The Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention is one of the hottest tickets of the year for fundraising professionals – three days packed full of learning, networking and inspiration. If you’re new to Convention, or if you’re going on your own, here’s how to get the most from it:

Choose your sessions in advance

There are so many great sessions to choose from but you can’t book them in advance so make sure you choose which ones you really want to go to and note them down. Sessions are on a first come, first served basis and the really popular ones will fill up quickly so ensure you arrive at the room as soon as you can. Have a backup session in case you can’t get in to the one you wanted to go to.

Split sessions

If you’re going with a colleague or colleagues, don’t all go to the same sessions. You’ll get so much more out of Convention if you each go to different sessions and then feed back to each other.

Download the Convention App

The Convention app is available for both Apple and Android and is free to download. Use it to plan your schedule, see speakers’ biographies, access a map and much more. The best part, for me, is that you can give session feedback from your last session as you move on to the next one.

Take a notepad

Believe me, you’ll learn oodles so bring a notepad and pen – or a tablet or laptop – and get ready to take notes! This is essential if you’re the only person from your charity attending as you can share what you’ve learnt and what you’d like to test or change when you get back to the office. Top tip is to jot down three key takeaways from each session.

Check out the hashtag

The official hashtag is #IofCC so make sure you not only use it when you tweet but that you check out what everyone else is tweeting. It’s a great way to meet new people you may not have been following on Twitter, plus it’s always interesting to hear other people’s thoughts, opinions, experiences etc. It’s also a great way to spot people (if they look like their profile picture) during breaks or at lunch and go and speak to them in real life.

Get social

On Tuesday after the last session, the exhibitors will be hosting drinks for all the delegates so don’t be shy – go along and meet some of your peers in a relaxed, informal setting. Once you’ve had a couple of drinks to warm you up, take part in the quiz where you can win money for your charity! Entry is £5 per person and you can enter a team or join a team by emailing iofconvention@institute-of-fundraising.org.uk.

Learn to meditate

Wisdom Fish will be offering meditation sessions at 10:15 am on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Convention. I love this idea! We could probably all do with a bit more zen in our lives….

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It’s just over a month until the Institute of Fundraising’s Fundraising Convention and I for one am getting really excited! As an official blogger this year, I’ve been keeping an eye out for the sessions that I want to attend and the Failure Swop Shop is high on my list.

We don’t talk enough about failure

I’ve said this many times before, particularly in my column for Third Sector, that we don’t talk about failure enough. The recent State of the Sector report by think tank NPC brought this home even more. There is a major reluctance to take risks and potentially fail but the risk of never progressing is even more damaging. There was a quote in the digital chapter of the report that really stood out for me:

How can we ever achieve excellence – fundraising or otherwise – if we just do what we’ve always done? If we never push the boundaries? If we never take risks? One common theme emerging from every report produced this year (and there have been a few) is that if the sector doesn’t embrace digital – and understand what it means and its potential – it will get left behind. We cannot let this happen.

So I do hope that those speaking in the Failure Swop Shop will be honest and candid in their Fundraising Convention session – it is Chatham House rules after all – because I feel it’s so important to normalise failure. If you can learn from your failure and progress then have you actually failed?

Another session I am looking forward to is Digital. Are we doing it wrong? In this session, Reuben Turner and Pete Grant from GOOD Agency will be challenging the view that digital is just about convenience. They will be sharing examples where digital is used to build meaning, emotion and belief. Excellent. I loved being challenged and I hope this session will make me come away with a different view. If you work in digital and you’re going to Convention, this is a session you won’t want to miss.